Sportsnet BigRead: Tom Webster

[Ped]

It wasn't well known that Tom Webster died in April. Former NHL player, former coach with the Rangers (briefly) and the Kings, and former scout with the Flames.


Great article by Gare Joyce.


https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/longfor...ing-spotlight/

Though Webster retired in 2014, his influence is still conspicuous when you look at recent Flames rosters. He pushed hard for the team to draft defenceman T.J. Brodie, who was ranked 164th among North American skaters and could well have been passed over entirely if Webster hadn’t made the case for selecting him in the fourth round. “[Webster] had come out and visited my family on the farm [in Chatham, Ont.] before the draft, so we had a pretty good idea that there was interest and he was pushing for me,” Brodie says. “After the draft, he’d come out to my games [with the Saginaw Spirit] and we’d always talk afterwards about what I could work on.”

Brodie logged seven full seasons on the Flames blue line but his contribution to Calgary’s fortunes were outstripped by another player Webster pushed for: captain Mark Giordano, who won the Norris Trophy in 2019. Giordano came from even farther off the radar — playing for the Owen Sound Attack, he had passed unselected through the draft three times. GM Darryl Sutter was looking to sign a bundle of undrafted free agents to build organizational depth — the bottom half of an AHL lineup or, more likely, players who could fill out an ECHL roster. Then-head amateur scout Mike Sands was the first to table Giordano, something of a late bloomer, as a possible longshot and Webster was dispatched for a second opinion. He came back with an enthusiastic, even emphatic, recommendation for signing Giordano. It wasn’t a case that Webster foresaw a captaincy or Norris Trophy but his approach did apply — most scouts looked for holes in Giordano’s game because he had passed through a draft, while Webster focused on his assets, the willingness to work and learn, and his steady improvement every season.

[FlatLandFlamesFan]

Just finished reading this, great article.